Looking Forward

Christmas 2011

It occurred to me that I never wrote about what happened last Christmas. I’ve learned A LOT about how to deal with a crazy person since a year ago. I hope last year was the worst year, and it will just continue to get easier the more we understand.

Christmas Day the kids were to be with their father. I planned our celebration so that the kids would have Christmas “day” with me on Christmas eve day. They opened presents a day early, had a nice big meal, etc. It was a lovely day.

The next morning I got the kids up and dressed, ready to take them to the store to meet their father so he could take them for Christmas. As the car was warming up the phone rang. A answered it. After he hung up he said that dad wants the boys dropped off at the store, and I’m to leave, and once I’m gone, A can call him and he’ll drive down and get them. Its 5 degrees out. The kids are bringing a bunch of stuff with them. The store is closed. No. I am not doing that. Then A said, if you don’t agree to that, then dad said you can call us a cab. I laughed. No. I’m not doing that either.

So I called the ex and said “Would it be better if I just dropped them off at your mother’s house with you? I’m not leaving them in a parking lot.”  After a long silence he said “No, fine, we’ll stick with what the court says.” I said “ok great, we’ll see you in a few minutes.”

We got everyone in the car and off we went. We got to the store and he wasn’t there. We waited. And waited. A called him, told him we were waiting, then the call got dropped.  We waited some more. Eventually we saw his car drive by the store, and park at the church, across the street, diagonally to the store parking lot we were waiting at.

We waited a little more, then I called him. A said “put it on speaker phone” so, like a dummy,  I did. “Why can’t you get it through your head?! I don’t want ANYTHING to do with you! NOT EVER!” I couldn’t get the speaker phone off quickly enough…once I did I calmly said “Ok, but we’re waiting over here, so you have to come over here and pick them up, I’m not leaving them here.” He screamed “YES! YOU ARE! I can see them from here! Once you’re gone, I’ll drive over and get them.” I said “No, you need to come over here and get your children.” And he hung up on me. We waited some more.

Eventually he drove over and parked behind the store. I helped the kids unload the back of the car with all their things, gave them hugs and told them I loved them and I knew they’d have a GREAT Christmas with dad! D said “This is a crappy way to start the day” I told him it was, but that it would get better.

I drove home and cried and hoped the kid’s would have a good time.

My husband and I watched Season 1 of The Walking Dead then went out for Chinese food. It was starting to snow. It was a quiet day, nice to be without the boys for a bit, but I was really hoping they were having a fun time.

Once we got home D called. He said he didn’t want to spend the night. He said he wasn’t having fun. I tried to cheer him up, I told him he needed to talk to dad himself about not wanting to spend the night, that I couldn’t just come get him. This was his time with dad. He said he was scared and didn’t want to talk to dad, that dad would just holler at him. Then D started to cry. A lot. I felt so helpless. I told D that I loved him and that if dad said it was ok that I’d come get him.

10 minutes later A called back, “Dad says for you to come get D.” I told him “ok”. I then called the X to verify this. A answered. “I need to talk to your dad.” A said “he doesn’t want to talk to you.” “Ugh fine. I’m going to call back and leave a message then.” I got his voice mail. I left a message saying “A said you wanted me to come pick D up, if this is NOT accurate, please call me ASAP.”

It was snowing a lot now. I left to go get my child. When I pulled into their driveway D came out of the house with all the things he’d brought with him, plus a few presents. Tears were pouring down his face. He threw all his stuff into the back seat, got in the front and started BAWLING. I told him it was all going to be ok, and tried to find out what happened.

Apparently after presents got opened dad went to play video games with A, leaving D to play with legos by himself. After a few times of asking to play with them, and being told no, to go play by himself, that this was dad’s time with A, D decided he didn’t want to spend the night. After calling me the first time, then telling dad he didn’t want to spend the night dad got really angry and said “FINE! Go then!” Then the X’s mom, known to my kids as “mannie” told D that he was making a very bad choice wanting to leave, and he was making his dad very sad.

Once we got home we tried to distract D as much as we could. We played some games and when it was bed time D was crying and upset. He wanted to sleep on the couch, he said he didn’t deserve to sleep in his bed. He had no idea why dad didn’t want to spend time with him, but wanted to spend all kinds of time with A.

After this I tried to email the X suggesting we work on a different schedule for D so that they could see each other but one that wouldn’t require overnights.

From: Stacey
To: X
Sent: Sun, Dec 25, 2011 
Subject: FYI

X,

I would like to remind you of the importance of communicating directly with me.

Regarding scheduling, including; pick up / drop off time and location, all communication needs to be between you and I exclusively. I fully understand you would prefer not to speak with me, however, as it pertains to our children, it does them no good to have you refuse to participate in very basic communication with their mother.  

If you would rather not answer my phone calls, I’m perfectly capable to leave you a voice mail, its inappropriate for A to answer your phone to let me know you don’t want to talk to me. That’s not his job, that is your job…which can be done by simply not answering your phone.

As far as D not wanting to spend the night, that is a phone call that you needed to have made to me, not him. Then we could have talked about alternate solutions, or you could have let me that your time with D was being cut short. 

Perhaps we should come up with a modified schedule for him so that he can spend time with you, but doesn’t spend the night, as it makes him uncomfortable? I’m happy to work with you about this, if its something you would like to pursue, please let me know.

Also, regarding drop and pickup, I will not leave the children without you there to pick them up at the time. This is not to happen again like it did this morning.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday.

Stacey

And then I sent this one the next day:

From: Stacey
To: X
Subject: D
Sent: Mon, Dec 26, 2011 11:27:53 PM 

X,

You never got back to me about working on a modified schedule for D. I’m not sure why, I would have thought that would have jumped at the chance to find a way to spend time with him. 

All the same, I took it upon myself to talk to him and try to work out some kind of solution to this, so that he has time to see his father. After talking at length with D today, he has agreed to spend Tuesday and Wednesday days with you, as long as he gets to come home in the evening and not have to spend the night. If this is something you can agree to, I can drop him off at the store with you at 7:30am and pick him up at the store at 5pm. He has also said that he would be ok to go with you and A next Sunday and spend the night, coming home Monday evening. 

If you agree to this, please reply to this email this evening, so I’ll have him ready to drop off tomorrow morning. 

I didn’t get a reply that evening. He didn’t respond until the next afternoon.

From: X
To: ME
Sent: Tue, Dec 27, 2011 01:09:39 GMT+00:00
Subject: Re: D

I jumped on a plane and traveled 1900 miles to see them. He stayed long enough to open his present, watch a movie and put together his legos. D has made it clear that this house makes him uncomfortable, I certainly don’t want to cause him anymore undue hardship given all that he has been put through. If he wants a relationship with me I am here, but forcing it is not appropriate given his fragile state. He does need to understand before he decides to come here that I have no more money to spend on him. Time with me will not be spent exclusively on him as A deserves equal time from me. I have no vehicle for pickup and drop off outside the pre-determined schedule. A store drop off will not happen until Wed. At 5. This is the schedule that you took me to court to get and I have no way to change accomodations at this point. He can call me and let me know if and when he will be here.

I let him know that D did not want to speak to him, but rather would email him. The next day I got this email

From: X
To: Me
Sent: Wed, Dec 28, 2011 21:46:07 GMT+00:00
Subject: Re: D

This is another blown opportunity (not literally this time, but figuratively speaking) on your part in regards to your son. Pretty sad.

FYI – D didn’t ask to call you, nor did he have permission or my blessing to leave early.
This was before I realized I was being baited into conversations. My response was:

From: Stacey
To: X
Subject: Re: D
Sent: Wed, Dec 28, 2011 10:09:00 PM 

If you didn’t tell D to call me then I guess when I called you to confirm,  you should have answered your phone. Or responded to the voice mail i left you. You should also know that A also called me and told me to pick D up.  If you wanted to have A longer, you should have talked to me about options before you got here. Its not A’s job to ask for more time with you from me,  its yours, you are the parent, not him.

This was a terrible holiday for all of us. It was stressful. X didn’t bring A back when he said he would, I went to the store and waited. When I called A to see what the deal was, he had no idea that I’d not been informed that he was staying with dad another night. D saw his dad one more time during that week. D told me afterwards that everything dad did with them seemed fake. He also said the kids weren’t allowed to talk about me or the things they do at home. If they did dad said he didn’t want to hear it.

Since then D hasn’t seen his dad, and has talked to him exactly 4 times on the phone.